Hard Feelings
by JillyW
Summary: A short post-Hard Time POV...


Notes: Another post-ep stream of consciousness thing - because there was so much left unsaid and done at the end of Hard Time, based on what we saw. Jesse-centric, but not - you'll be shocked to hear! - a Jesse POV...   
  
Thanks to Chya for the reassurance!  
  
Spoilers: Hard Time  
  
Disclaimers: Sadly, none of the Mutant X team belong to me. I've just borrowed them briefly from their owners and promise to put them back exactly (well, almost... particularly in Jesse's case!) as I found them. No profit is being made from these stories and I don't have anything worth suing for...  
  
  
  
  
HARD FEELINGS  
By JillyW  
  
  
He's hurting. Still. It's been four days, but the hurt he tries so hard to disguise is still there. Still obvious, at least to me, even though I think the others don't see it like I do. But they don't know him as well - or maybe they've just stopped looking, stopped trying to see past the mask he wears so often now. The one that morphs from endearing goof to exasperating smartass without ever really giving a glimpse of what's going on underneath.  
  
It's no surprise that physically he's suffering. What he had to endure in that pit - and at the hands of a friend - was horrifying. I can still feel my hackles rising at the memory of it; the testosterone-laden atmosphere, the baying of the crowd, Brennan's total uncaring fixation on taking Jesse to pieces, the way he flaunted his powers - both physical and mutant, crowing his superiority over the perceived lesser prey, accepting the throng's adulation as his due.   
  
My feral senses seemed to magnify everything, making it all too loud, too obsessive, too heated, all so overwhelming that if I hadn't had the reason we were there to focus on I might have been swept up in it enough to be driven to either fight or flight. But my concern for two of the men I care most about in the world, set against each other like dogs, one doing his utmost to destroy, the other equally determined to redeem, kept me glued to the spot.  
  
I don't know what I would have done if Jesse hadn't managed, against the odds, to reach the neutralising serum Brennan had forced him to drop when he'd been hurled across the ring by the electrical discharge flooding through the cage, and bring the thing to a thankfully abrupt close. What we'd all have done if Brennan had succeeded in his drug-fuelled desire to kill. I was ready to leap in there when I saw him pin Jess to the fence, squeezing the life out of him, but I'm not sure even I could have got there in time to do anything to stop the intended coup de grace. If I could actually have taken Brennan down, given how far gone he was. But I know none of us could have forgiven ourselves if it had come to that, for all that Jesse had put himself willingly in the firing line.  
  
It's not just the physical side I can perceive, though I can catalogue the damage he sustained, have heard the detail from Adam and seen the evidence for myself when I passed his room and caught him in an unguarded moment, shirtless and vulnerable. The loose tees and baggy pants can't hide the cautious way he's moving inside them, shoulders hunched forward to ease the strain on cracked ribs and battered flesh, arms more often than not folded protectively around himself as if that will ward off further hurt - or maybe just to keep us away from him. The cuts and bruising marking his face have darkened, swollen, giving his drawn features a lop-sided look, and not for the first time I wish I could share with my friends that part of my feral DNA that allows me to heal so quickly, to let Adam's clever toys be as instantly effective as they are for me instead of just aiding the much lengthier process in them.  
  
But mentally he's suffering just as much. Something happened that he's not telling us, something that's hurting him far more than the physical injuries. And that worries me more because it's so much harder to fix.  
  
Emma told us he believes it was his fault Brennan was subjected to the steroid treatment, that he somehow screwed up, failed to deliver on his side of the assignment and thus put his partner at risk. That's why he made getting him out his personal mission, accepting the punishment readily, prepared to do whatever it took even to the point of being the one who had to help him from the ring and away. He was in no fit state to do it, really, and I have no idea how he managed to support the big guy's weight so long, so far. But I could see it was something he needed to do, no matter that Brennan had just done his level best to pulverise him into the concrete. So I let him, focusing on making sure the way was clear, no nasty surprises lurking to distract him from the fierce concentration it took just to keep putting one foot in front of the other and not crumble under his self-imposed burden.  
  
Luckily we hadn't left the Helix too far away, because he was about out on his feet by the time we got there. Brennan was almost a dead weight then, the antidote Adam had concocted going head to head with the remains of Rigas' evil little brew and wiping him out in the process, but still Jess wouldn't let me help. Adam was already putting in a call to the authorities as we took off, but all Emma and I were interested in right then was to get the boys home safely.   
  
It was heartbreaking to have to restrain Brennan in his seat, just in case the neutralisation proved to be only temporary and he went berserk again. But it was even harder to see how Jesse slid away to the furthest darkest corner, shrugging off our attempts to fuss over him and his wounds. The dim lighting couldn't really hide the way he was shaking - from reaction, exhaustion, pain, I couldn't say which - or the unreadable look in the shadowed eyes that stared intently Brennan's way, until he couldn't keep them open any longer and drifted into a troubled doze.  
  
Even back in Sanctuary he didn't want us around him, insisting Adam check Brennan out first and then taking advantage of that distraction to slip off and hit the shower, wash away the sweat and blood, the accumulated dirt and grime of his incarceration. I think he'd probably have stayed there all night if Adam hadn't gone and fetched him out. But there are some stains that a lifetime of showers can't eradicate, and I have a feeling that whatever happened to him in that place falls into that category.  
  
And I think it has to do with Brennan.  
  
But not the obvious. Not just that he'd tried to kill him. Nor that he used his powers openly and with pride, goaded Jess to do the same and punished him more when he wouldn't, regardless that I'd heard him over-stating the point that this was a big no-no before they went in - or that the massed arm I saw appear briefly would in all likelihood have taken his head off had Jesse given into temptation, allowed himself to retaliate instead of just fighting for time. Not even the grudging way Brennan had acceded to Adam's demands that they go in as a team.  
  
Something else.   
  
Something worse...  
  
I'm just not really sure exactly what, though I have my suspicions.   
  
We had to wait until the next day for Adam to be sure Brennan was back to his old self - good news, because I sure didn't like the person I saw in that arena, for all that it looked exactly like the man I've been developing deeper feelings for than I'm maybe prepared to admit to - even to myself.  
  
It hadn't been a restful night for any of us. Adam wanted to keep an eye on both our fight clubbers - Brennan until he was sure his caveman alter ego wasn't going to raise his ugly head again, and Jesse for delayed symptoms or unexpected side effects from some of the more vicious moves Brennan had pulled on him. I think he was most worried about concussion, a real possibility given the pounding his head had taken - that floor was hard, none of the give of a dojo or sparring ring - though thankfully nothing serious materialised.   
  
And for my part - and I think probably for Emma, too - I was still too hyped up by what I'd seen to be able to blot it out that easily, reminders assailing me every time I closed my eyes.  
  
But it allowed plenty of time for debriefing, although - intentionally or not - it kind of worked out that Adam spoke individually with Emma and the guys about their experiences rather than doing it all together, which means that only he has the full picture of what went on in there - well, as full as I think we're likely to get now. I've managed to drag enough out of the others, though, to know that it wasn't a bundle of laughs. Not that we expected it would be.  
  
Brennan's still being pretty vague over some of what happened, and Adam says the drug cocktail he was on could affect his memory of that time. But I can't help feeling that somehow he's maybe remembering more than he's told any of us.  
  
Jesse's saying very little, which isn't like him. One more reason I can tell he's still so fragile inside. Brennan says they're OK, no hard feelings. That they've talked, cleared the air, and that he's been forgiven for everything he did while 'under the influence'. But I catch Jess looking at him sometimes when he doesn't think anyone will notice and I'm not so sure.   
  
I can see how it might have just been easier to say the words Brennan wanted, needed, to hear without necessarily meaning them one hundred percent. He can be a persistent so and so when he needs to get something off his chest, so the alternative would have been to have him keep coming back over and over again, scratching away at the healing scars, seeking absolution.   
  
But, while the Jesse I know and love, the Jesse who's never been one to lay blame, hold a grudge or wish ill on others, always quick to reassure and console, would have given that forgiveness wholeheartedly and without hesitation, there's been a new tougher - harder, almost - edge to him that's been appearing more and more frequently over recent months. It's that I can see in his eyes, concealing the pain, the uncertainty that I just know he's feeling, pretending that everything's all right even when it so obviously isn't.  
  
Because he's smart, my Jesse. He knows his way round the computer systems better than any of us, including Adam. And because of that I'm guessing he's found out what Adam and Emma and I all know, though none us have dared to put the unpalatable truth it points to into words, least of all to the two people it concerns most. That he now understands that all Rigas' treatment did was ramp up the aggression levels of the subject, simply taking already existing instincts and emotions to uncontrollable heights rather than altering them or creating anything new.   
  
And, though I hate to even think it, that has to mean that somewhere in there under his outward displays of friendship and family, Brennan really is harbouring a depth of negative feelings towards Jesse that could drive him to kill.  
  
I can't bear it that Jesse can see this as clearly as I fear he must. That he might accept it as the true root of all Brennan's previously 'big brotherly' seeming digs at his background and abilities. That it could start to cause a rift between them that, for all our super powers, we'll be unable to heal. That I'll lose one - or both - of them.  
  
I really couldn't bear that. They both mean far too much to me, in their own ways.  
  
Does Brennan know too? Does he fully understand what was done to him, why it made him do what he did? I'm not sure. Like I said, he's being rather vague about the whole thing. I'm sure Adam will have explained his theories, if Brennan wanted to hear them, but I only know it hasn't been mentioned outside that - and it may never be now. I think we're all too afraid of how it might end...  
  
Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am. But I kind of wish now that Brennan had gone in alone, that Jess had sat this one out with me, shared my frustration at not being part of the action but ultimately been spared all this hurt he's struggling to deal with now.  
  
He thinks he can handle it by himself. Perhaps he thinks he has to, that we won't understand. Or that if he says anything, brings it into the open, it will force us to choose sides. And, though he's not the wide-eyed innocent he was when he first came to Sanctuary, he'd never intentionally do anything to jeopardise what we have here, what Mutant X stands for. He'd never want to put us in that position.  
  
Or maybe he's just frightened that, if it comes to that, he'll end up alone. And that's not a risk he's prepared to take. So he puts his mask on, concealing his hopes and fears behind it, never letting us near enough to see that he's anything other than fine.  
  
He's not, though.   
  
Not yet.  
  
But hopefully, with time and reassurance, he will be.  
  
Until then I'll watch him, be ready as and when he wants to talk, let him know I'm here for him, as I've always been. As I'll always be, no matter what.  
  
  
END 


End file.
